Janet Christie's Mum's the Word

Why January is that most wonderful time of the year

PIC PHIL WILKINSON.TSPL / JOHNSTON PRESS JANET CHRISTIE , MAGAZINE WRITER

It’s that most wonderful time of the year. January. Eleven glorious yule-free months to enjoy before you’re “hanging up that stocking on the wa-a-a-all” again. The decs are stashed in the outside stair cupboard, the last of the Christmas pudding has finally gone from the fridge (amazing given that everybody “hates” it) and the hell of returning to the shops for the right sizes and experiencing shopping frenzy for the second time in a fortnight is over.

Don’t give me any of that January blues nonsense, I’m kicking my height, in my new socks (secured by buying them myself, ie the kind I like, not ones with antlers sticking out the side or thick enough to 
take me up Cairngorm) and giving them to Middle Child to gift me in our inaugural Secret Santa (buy one gift, spending no more than a tenner, it’s the future).

But what finally completely scunnered me with the whole thing was having to celebrate Christmas on three consecutive days, to suit various other parties’ arrangements “so the kids wouldn’t be disappointed”. Puhlease. Three Christmas meals, three days of gift opening, three days of PC blended family hell. Absolutely sickening. Forget it. The children don’t care. It’s the parents who are either delusional or just plain selfish. Do it once and get it over with. Take it turn about and if you miss it, you miss it (personally I’d be up for missing it every year).

Youngest Child agrees. “How was your Christmas?” someone asked her at Hogmanay. “Confusing,” she responded. I could have hugged her. But let’s not get carried away. It’ll be Christmas again soon enough. Plenty of time for that. n